Chapter XVI.

On the perfection of patience.

A twofold reason however
led me to relate this fact, first that we may weigh this steadfastness
and constancy of the man, and as we are attacked by less serious wiles
of the enemy, may the better secure a greater feeling of calmness and
patience, secondly that we may with resolute decision hold that we
cannot be safe from the storms of temptation and assaults of the devil
if we make all the protection for our patience and all our confidence
consist not in the strength of our inner man but in the doors of our
cell or the recesses of the desert, and companionship of the saints, or
the safeguard of anything else outside us. For unless our mind is
strengthened by the power of His protection Who says in the gospel
“the kingdom of God is within you,”20932093 S. Luke xvii. 21.
in vain do we fancy that we can defeat the plots of our airy foe by the
aid of men who are living with us, or that we can avoid them by
distance of place, or exclude them by the protection of walls. For
though none of these things was wanting to Saint Paphnutius yet the
tempter did not fail to find a way of access against him to attack him;
nor did the encircling walls, or the solitude of the desert or the
merits of all those saints in the congregation repulse that most foul
spirit. But because the holy servant of God had fixed the hope of his
heart not on those external things but on Him Who is the judge of all
secrets, he could not be moved even by the machinations of such an
assault as that. On the other hand did not the man whom envy had
hurried into so grievous a sin enjoy the benefit of solitude and the
protection of a retired dwelling, and intercourse with the blessed
Abbot and Presbyter Isidore and other saints? And yet because the storm
raised by the devil found him upon the sand, it not only drove in his
house but actually overturned it. We need not then seek for our peace
in externals, nor fancy that another person’s patience can be of
any use to the faults of our impatience. For just as “the kingdom
of God is within you,” so “a man’s foes are they of
his own household.”20942094 S. Matt. x. 36. For no one is
more my enemy than my own heart which is truly the one of my household
closest to me. And therefore if we are careful, we cannot possibly be
injured by intestine enemies. For where those of our own household are
not opposed to us, there also the kingdom of God is secured in peace of
heart. For if you diligently investigate the matter, I cannot be
injured by any man however spiteful, if I do not fight against myself
with warlike heart. But if I am injured, the fault is not owing to the
other’s attack, but to my own impatience. For as strong and solid
food is good for a man in good health, so it is bad for a sick one. But
it cannot hurt the man who takes it, unless the weakness of its
recipient gives it its power to hurt. If then any similar temptation
ever arises among brethren, we need never be shaken out of the even
tenor of our ways and give an opening to the blasphemous snarls of men
living in the world, nor wonder that some bad and detestable men have
secretly found their way into the number of the saints, because so long
as we are trodden down and trampled in the threshing floor of this
world, the chaff which is destined for eternal fire is quite sure to be
mingled with the choicest of the wheat. Finally if we bear in mind that
Satan was chosen among the angels, and Judas among the apostles, and
Nicholas the
488author of
a detestable heresy among the deacons, it will be no wonder that the
basest of men are found among the ranks of the saints. For although
some maintain that this Nicholas was not the same man who was chosen
for the work of the ministry by the Apostles,20952095 As Cassian here
implies, considerable doubt exists whether the Nicholas from whom the
sect of the Nicolaitans (Rev.
ii. 15) derive their name was
the same person as Nicholas the last of the seven “deacons”
mentioned in Acts vi.
5. According to Irenæus
(Hær. I. xxvi.) the Nicolaitans themselves claimed him as their
founder, and the claim is allowed by Hippolytus (Philos. vii. §
36), Epiphanius (Hær. I. ii. § 25), and other writers of the
fourth century. Clement of Alexandria however disputes the claim
(Strom. III. iv. and cf. Euseb. H. E. III. xxix.), as does Theodoret
(Hær. Tab. iii. 1).
nevertheless they cannot deny that he was of the number of the
disciples, all of whom were clearly of such a character and so perfect
as those few whom we can now with difficulty discover in the
Cœnobia. Let us then bring forward not the fall of the
above-mentioned brother, who fell in the desert with so grievous a
collapse, nor that horrible stain which he afterwards wiped out by the
copious tears of his penitence, but the example of the blessed
Paphnutius; and let us not be destroyed by the ruin of the former,
whose ingrained sin of envy was increased and made worse by his
affected piety, but let us imitate with all our might the humility of
the latter, which in his case was no sudden production of the quiet of
the desert, but had been gained among men, and was consummated and
perfected by solitude. However you should know that the evil of envy is
harder to be cured than other faults, for I should almost say that a
man whom it has once tainted with the mischief of its poison is without
a remedy. For it is the plague of which it is figuratively said by the
prophet: “Behold I will send among you serpents, basilisks,
against which there is no charm: and they shall bite
you.”20962096Jer. viii. 17. Rightly then are
the stings of envy compared by the prophet to the deadly poison of
basilisks, as by it the first author of all poisons and their chief
perished and died. For he slew himself before him of whom he was
envious, and destroyed himself before that he poured forth the poison
of death against man: for “by the envy of the devil death entered
into the world: they therefore who are on his side follow
him.”20972097Wisd. ii. 24, 25. For just as he
who was the first to be corrupted by the plague of that evil, admitted
no remedy of penitence, nor any healing plaster, so those also who have
given themselves up to be smitten by the same pricks, exclude all the
aid of the sacred charmer, because as they are tormented not by the
faults but by the prosperity of those of whom they are jealous, they
are ashamed to display the real truth and look out for some external
unnecessary and trifling causes of offence: and of these, because they
are altogether false, vain is the hope of cure, while the deadly poison
which they will not produce is lurking in their veins. Of which the
wisest of men has fitly said: “If a serpent bite without hissing,
there is no supply for the charmer.”20982098Eccl. x. 2. For those are silent bites, to which
alone the medicine of the wise is no succour. For that evil is so far
incurable that it is made worse by attentions, it is increased by
services, is irritated by presents, because as the same Solomon says:
“envy endures nothing.”20992099Prov. xxvii. 4. For just in
proportion as another has made progress in humble submission or in the
virtue of patience or in the merit of munificence, so is a man excited
by worse pricks of envy, because he desires nothing less than the ruin
or death of the man whom he envies. Lastly no submission on the part of
their harmless brother could soften the envy of the eleven patriarchs,
so that Scripture relates of them: “But his brothers envied him
because his father loved him, and they could not speak peaceably unto
him”21002100Gen. xxxvii. 4. until their
jealousy, which would not listen to any entreaties on the part of their
obedient and submissive brother, desired his death, and would scarcely
be satisfied with the sin of selling a brother. It is plain then that
envy is worse than all faults, and harder to get rid of, as it is
inflamed by those remedies by which the others are destroyed. For, for
example, a man who is grieved by a loss that has been caused to him, is
healed by a liberal compensation: one who is sore owing to a wrong done
to him, is appeased by humble satisfaction being made. What can you do
with one who is the more offended by the very fact that he sees you
humbler and kinder, who is not aroused to anger by any greed which can
be appeased by a bribe; or by any injurious attack or love of
vengeance, which is overcome by obsequious services; but is only
irritated by another’s success and happiness? But who is there
who in order to satisfy one who envies him, would wish to fall from his
good fortune, or to lose his prosperity or to be involved in some
calamity? Wherefore we must constantly implore the divine aid, to which
nothing is impossible, in order that the serpent may not by a single
bite of this evil destroy whatever is flourishing in us, and animated
as it were by the life and quickening power of the Holy Ghost. For the
other poisons of serpents, i.e., carnal sins and faults, in which human
frailty is easily entangled and from which it is as easily purified,
show some traces of their wounds
489in the flesh, whereby although the
earthly body is most dangerously inflamed, yet if any charmer well
skilled in divine incantations applies a cure and antidote or the
remedy of words of salvation, the poisonous evil does not reach to the
everlasting death of the soul. But the poison of envy as if emitted by
the basilisk, destroys the very life of religion and faith, even before
the wound is perceived in the body. For he does not raise himself up
against men, but, in his blasphemy, against God, who carps at nothing
in his brother except his felicity, and so blames no fault of man, but
simply the judgment of God. This then is that “root of bitterness
springing up”21012101Heb. xii. 15. which raises itself
to heaven and tends to reproaching the very Author Who bestows good
things on man. Nor shall anyone be disturbed because God threatens to
send “serpents, basilisks,”21022102Jer. viii. 17.
to bite those by whose crimes He is offended. For although it is
certain that God cannot be the author of envy, yet it is fair and
worthy of the divine judgment that, while good gifts are bestowed on
the humble and refused to the proud and reprobate, those who, as the
Apostle says, deserve to be given over “to a reprobate
mind,”21032103Rom. i. 28. should be smitten
and consumed by envy sent as it were by Him, according to this passage:
“They have provoked me to jealousy by them that are no gods: and
I will provoke them to jealousy by them that are no
nation.”21042104Deut. xxxii. 21.

By this discourse the blessed Piamun excited still more
keenly our desire in which we had begun to be promoted from the infant
school of the Cœnobium to the second standard of the
anchorites’ life. For it was under his instruction that we made
our first start in solitary living, the knowledge of which we
afterwards followed up more thoroughly in Scete.

2095 As Cassian here
implies, considerable doubt exists whether the Nicholas from whom the
sect of the Nicolaitans (Rev.
ii. 15) derive their name was
the same person as Nicholas the last of the seven “deacons”
mentioned in Acts vi.
5. According to Irenæus
(Hær. I. xxvi.) the Nicolaitans themselves claimed him as their
founder, and the claim is allowed by Hippolytus (Philos. vii. §
36), Epiphanius (Hær. I. ii. § 25), and other writers of the
fourth century. Clement of Alexandria however disputes the claim
(Strom. III. iv. and cf. Euseb. H. E. III. xxix.), as does Theodoret
(Hær. Tab. iii. 1).